"2025": The Facts -- Child Labor and the Attack on Workers

A Full-Out Assault on Workers and Unions

One of the most overlooked parts of Project 2025 is its brutal attack on workers and unions, as well as steps that would open the door for far more discrimination in the workplace.

In fact, the 37-page Section on the Department of Labor is so chock-full of gut-wrenching changes and open-ended repeals of laws that have protected workers for decades, it’s hard to know where to begin and where the damage would end. And that damage will take place in every corner of the nation.

But since Chapter 7 of my “2025” focused on the issue of child labor, let’s start there:

Child Labor

Under the topic “Hazard-Order Regulations,” (page 595), Project 2025 comes right out and says “teenagers” should take up hazardous jobs:

“Hazard-Order Regulations. Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs. Current rules forbid many young people, even if their family is running the business, from working in such jobs. This results in worker shortages in dangerous fields and often discourages otherwise interested young workers from trying the more dangerous job. With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations. This would give a green light to training programs and build skills in teenagers who may want to work in these fields.”

And in case that wasn’t clear enough, here’s the next sentence:

“DOL should amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work in regulated jobs with proper training and parental consent.”

This dark and disturbing push parallels states across the country which have also been repealing child-labor laws for several years now: “In states like Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, and Arkansas, newly passed or pending laws allow companies to hire children without work permits and allow children to work longer hours under more dangerous conditions in places like construction sites, meat packing plants, and automobile factories.”

A special investigation found that “[t]he number of children working illegally has skyrocketed across all industries, according to the Labor Department, nearly doubling since 2019. More than 800 child labor investigations in 47 states are ongoing across industries, according to the agency.” No surprise, injuries and deaths are resulting, including a 16-year old in a poultry processing plant in Mississippi.

Of course, Project 2025’s solution to this crisis is to render "legal” activity which has up to now been illegal.

But repealing child labor laws is just the tip of the iceberg of what Project 2025 proposes.

Attacking Unions and Collective Bargaining:

Early on, Project 2025 asks Congress to consider making public unions illegal:

“Congress should also consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place. The bipartisan consensus up until the middle of the 20th century held that these unions were not compatible with constitutional government. After more than half a century of experience with public-sector union frustrations of good government management, it is hard to avoid reaching the same conclusion.” (Page 82).

Later, the plan criticizes “America’s one-size-fits-all approach [to unions that] undermines worker representation. Federal labor law offers no alternatives to labor unions whose politicking and adversarial approach appeals to few, whereas most workers report that they prefer a more cooperative model run jointly with management that focuses solely on workplace issues.”  (599)

The plan therefore proposes “new options available to workers and [] labor reforms that create non-union ‘employee involvement organizations’ as well as a mechanism for worker representation on corporate boards.” EIOs would “facilitate voluntary cooperation on critical issues like working conditions, benefits, and productivity.”

“Voluntary cooperation”—as in, not collective bargaining.

The plan then loosens prohibitions on employers cracking down on protected union organizing activity (600-601), eliminates the card-check option for union elections, while expanding the opportunity for employers to decertify a union. (602-603)

While acknowledging that there is disagreement on the issue, Project 2025 articulates the case that federal prevailing wage should be repealed. Prevailing wage requirements “redistribute[] wealth from hardworking Americans to those that benefit from government-funded construction projects. Repealing [the prevailing wage] would increase worker freedom and end a longstanding effective tax on American families.” (Pages 603-604)

This section also proposes that the government “end all mandatory Project Labor Agreement requirements and base federal procurement decisions on the contractors that can deliver the best product at the lowest cost.”

Finally, tucked away in the plan is this whopper: “legislation allowing waivers for states and local governments: To encourage experimentation and reform efforts at the state and local levels, Congress should pass legislation allowing waivers from federal labor laws like the NLRA and FLSA under certain conditions.”

Allowing states to ignore these bedrock pro-worker protections opens the door to just about anything, including averting minimum wage laws, overtime rules, and all aspects of collective bargaining.

Eroding “Woke” Rules, such as Overtime and Worker Safety

The plan proposes sweeping change to workplace regulations it castigates as “woke”:

“We must replace ‘woke’ nonsense with a healthy vision of the role of labor policy in our society, starting with the American family.”

But its definition of “woke” includes rules that have been in place for decades.

Among these so-called pro-family goals, Project 2025:

• weakens overtime rules in a number of ways, including lowering the threshold to qualify for overtime in many parts of the country, changing how hours are calculated so employers can avoid overtime through creative and inconsistent scheduling, and allowing employers to provide time-and-half in paid time off as opposed to actual time-and-a-half pay.

  • As one analysis concluded: “If the Project 2025 overtime rules are implemented it would enable employers to force employees to work well beyond 40 hours in one week then allow them to drastically cut hours in subsequent weeks to avoid paying overtime, rolling back the expanded overtime rules, existing overtime standards and effectively eliminating overtime pay.”

  • Media Matters wrote of the overtime rules: “The radical anti-labor agenda from Project 2025 -- led by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation -- calls for allowing employers to eviscerate overtime regulations and potentially withhold pay.”

• Exception: “Congress should encourage communal rest by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act…to require that workers be paid time and a half for hours worked on the Sabbath.”

• Loosens the definition of independent contractors (vs. employees) by rolling back recent regulations that clarify what jobs truly are independent contractors, and creates "a safe harbor from employer-employee status for companies that offer independent workers access to earned benefits” (590-591)

  • “[T]he Economic Policy Institute estimated [this change] would cost workers more than $3 billion per year.” (Media Matters)

• Worker safety: “Congress (and DOL, in its enforcement discretion) should exempt small business, first-time, non-willful violators from fines issued by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.” (594)

Rescinding Anti-discrimination Laws and Regulations

As part of its attack on “woke,” Project 2025 would gut federal efforts to curb discrimination, and instead would create exceptions that allow discrimination:

• Proposes to “[r]everse the DEI Revolution in Labor Policy” (page 582)

• Eliminates the collection of employment data on race and ethnicity, which the plan acknowledges allow suits for discrimination to be brought (page 583), along with weakening other processes and rules that ensure non-discrimination in the workplace

• Rescinds regulations that prohibit discrimination based upon “sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics” (page 584)

• Calls for an executive order making clear “that religious employers are free to run their businesses according to their religious beliefs, general nondiscrimination laws notwithstanding.” (586)

Medicaid Cuts

Chapter 7 of my “2025” makes a reference to cuts to Medicaid. Here’s a detailed account of how those changes would play out.

Resources:

Here are some great resources explaining all these changes, and more:

AFL-CIO webpage

American Progress: the broader risk to organizing efforts

An Analysis of the Labor Section from Truthout.org

Mother Jones summary of the Labor Section:

“If Donald Trump wins the White House in 2024, loyalists have written a battle plan for how to change labor laws and regulations: make it harder for workers to form unions, make it easier for companies to classify employees as independent contractors, and ban the government from collecting race-based employment data in the name of stopping anti-discrimination lawsuits.”

These are enormous changes, folks. And will have a huge impact across the nation.

Please be sure others know. Spread the word…